BIOS

Meteor showers: 5 facts for stargazers

Share:

Text:

The Camelopardalid meteor shower is expected to light up the early morning sky on Saturday.

Debris from a passing comet will enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up in a spectacular light show.

It's not just of interest to astronomers, however. If you're taking in this weekend's light show, here are five fun facts about the meteor shower.

Newcomers

The Camelopardalid meteor shower is a relatively rare occurrence: a completely new meteor shower.

While stargazers have seen meteors caused by other comets in the past - like that of Perseids, which happens every August - this is Camelopardalid's debut.

"A spectacular meteor shower like this that pops up out of the blue, that's a very rare thing," Bill Cooke, lead of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office told CTV News Channel on Friday.

The comet responsible for the meteor shower was only discovered in 2004, and this is the first time debris from it will enter the Earth's orbit.

There's no chance of the Camelopardalids, or any other meteor shower going unnoticed. The shower will last up to nine hours, peaking between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. in Ontario. In addition, there's a series of all-sky video systems across the country, set up to detect bright fireballs like those caused by meteors.

Real danger

Meteor showers and other bits of debris in space can represent a real danger to astronauts and spacecraft.

"We have no idea what we’re going to see Saturday morning," Cooke said.

A piece of the action

If you want to see some meteors up close, the Royal Ontario Museum has hundreds of meteorites in its Teck Suite of Galleries, and offers free identification clinics for suspected meteorites six times a year.

If you'd like to own one of your own, check eBay. The auction site has over 7,000 meteorites up for grabs, with prices going as high as $100,000.